


A Question Left Unanswered

by Raccoonfg



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Gen, Mary Sue, Mystery, Original Character(s), Parody, Satire, Tongue-in-cheek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: When everything has its answer, a question still remains.





	A Question Left Unanswered

**Author's Note:**

> The following short story was written for /ZTG/'s Secret Santa event (01/05/18) and was written as a gift for my randomly selected giftee Nikolu.
> 
> If you're interested in checking out some of Nikolu's Zootopia fanart, it's available at the link below:  
> https://nikolu-art.tumblr.com/

Officer Judy Hopps of the ZPD was busy filing reports on all of the crimes that she and her partner, Officer Nicholas Wilde of the ZPD, had solved for the day when her partner, Nick, the only fox police officer, came into the room

“Hey Carrots,” he said to Judy, the only rabbit police officer, who he called ‘Carrots’ because rabbits are known to like carrots and her parents are farmers who also grow carrots because they are rabbits, “something has been bothering me lately.”

“What’s that, Nick?” Judy asked. She called him ‘Nick’ because that was his name.

Sitting down in his police chair, Nick looked around all stealth-like and sneaky like a fox would, and motioned for Judy to listen closely, which was easy for her to do with her long rabbit-like ears.

“Is this about the unsolved murder of Gideon Gray, the fox who bullied me as a kid and said I couldn’t be a police officer, but then I did become one and he turned out to be a good guy so everything is okay now, except for the fact that he was murdered?”

“What?” Nick blinked and shook his head. “No, not that. Besides, we still don’t know if that was murder. I mean, anyone could have accidentally tripped and fell into their own oven while it was still turned on.”

“That’s true,” Judy said with a slight shrug. “So what is it, Nick?”

“Have you noticed anything strange about the new guy?”

“You mean--”

“Yes,” Nick nodded, “Special Officer Nikolu.”

“Well,” Judy pressed a furry finger to her pursed lips, “other than him being so exceptional that they made him a special officer, Special Officer Nikolu is a king cheetah, which is--”

“Right, a king of all cheetahs,” Nick knowingly interrupted, “and capable of running twice as fast and ten times as long as any regular, plebeian cheetah. I already know that Carrots. It’s both uniquely special and perfectly normal for a graceful creature like our Nikolu.”

“So what’s wrong then?” Judy was in a state of intrigue that put her so far on the edge of her seat that she was actually just standing on the floor and not sitting at all.

“That’s just it,” Nick sighed, throwing his paws up in the air, practically begging for help from Zootopia God, which was like regular God but for animals, “I don’t know what it is about him. His good looks… His shining intellect… His underappreciated talents as a skilled artist without equal… There’s just something about Special Officer Nikolu that I can’t put my finger on.”

The two of them sat there in a pregnant pause, except for Judy, who was standing, not sitting, and wasn’t pregnant because she was saving herself for marriage, like a good Christian Rabbit, which was like a regular Christian except she prayed to the Easter Bunny and painted eggs on Sundays.

“Could it be…” Judy hummed. “…His good looks?”

Nick shook his head.

“Hmm… That he’s so smart?”

Nick shook again.

Thinking harder than she ever had before, Judy rubbed her finger under her twitching rabbit-like nose. “Maybe… His unparalleled skills as an artist--”

“Darn it, Carrots,” Nick barked, “I already know that. Everyone does. Everyone knows that Nikolu is a magnificent specimen of an animal in every way.”

“I’m sorry Nick,” Judy sobbed, trying her best to keep from breaking down into tears. “I really am a dumb bunny.”

“It’s okay, Carrots.” Nick sympathetically patted his mewling partner on the head. “We can’t all be sly foxes.”

Suddenly, without warning, the door unexpectedly opened out of the blue, causing Nick and Judy to turn their heads in surprise as their unforeseen guest strode into the room with the poise and grace of a gazelle, if a gazelle was also a cheetah.

The lean, handsome figure that crossed the threshold of their office and radiated the drab room like a brilliant beam of shining sunlight was easy for Officers Nick and Judy to recognize, as he had the markings of a king cheetah, which were like a regular cheetah’s, only thicker, darker, and much, much cooler than a regular one’s.

It was the one and only Special Officer Nikolu.

“Officer Nick, Officer Judy,” Nikolu purred in a deep, velvety voice that was so smooth it could convince a baby to take its first steps, “I was busy sharpening my katana blade sword when my acute sense of hearing detected you two mentioning my name. Was there anything I can do to help?”

The two of them were at first stunned, not just by being honored by his presence, but also by being partially blinded by his breathtaking awesomeness, which was really their fault, as from day one Chief Bogo, the only cape buffalo police officer, warned everyone to not look directly at Special Officer Nikolu without proper eye protection.

Realizing that they were already wasting his valuable time that was better spent sharpening all one-thousand folded layers of his ancient katana blade sword, which was better than all other swords and could cut a tank in half and still be able to slice a tomato, Nick put on his police sunglasses while Judy shielded her eyes like a timid rabbit.

“Actually, yes,” Judy replied as she cowered under her fuzzy paw and gazed at the floor, “Nick was telling me that something was bothering him.”

“Really?” Nikolu turned to Nick with a quizzical look on his face that showed how his keen, laser-like intellect and photographic memory was already primed and ready to go.

“Uh, yeah,” Nick nodded.

“Is this about the unsolved murder of Gideon Grey, the fox who beat up Judy because bunnies can’t be police officers, but then she became one anyways so he became a baker because foxes can’t bake and then he ended up dead?”

“Well,” Nick shrugged, “it was probably an accident.”

“A mysterious accident,” Judy added.

“Indeed,” Nikolu concurred while stroking his chin like a great philosopher of old.

“Not that mysterious,” Nick retorted. “It happens all the time. You can’t go a week without reading in the newspaper about someone being accidentally burned alive in their own oven after being ground up and stuffed into a meat pie.” He then smiled at Nikolu and Judy, looking both cool and responsible with his police sunglasses on. “Trust me, I was the last person to see Gideon alive, I would know if it was an accident or not.”

“That is true,” said Nikolu as he slowly and academically nodded in agreement.

“Sorry for doubting you Nick,” Judy apologized. “I should just be glad that the same thing didn’t happen to you, or else you wouldn’t have been able to hastily propose to me after burning those clothes you were wearing earlier that had gotten messy for unrelated reasons.

“It’s okay, I forgive you, partner. Or should I say ‘fiancee’?” Nick winked at Judy, but she couldn’t see it because Nick was wearing police sunglasses and she was staring at the floor.

“Haha,” chuckled Nikolu as he playfully shook his head with the gentle smile of an angel on his face. “You two… Ah!” He then widened his eyes and the room lit up another fifteen hundred lumens. “Was this about how we’ll soon be calling each of you Officer Wilde-Hopps? That seems like a silly thing to be bothered about.”

“It is,” Judy cheerfully replied with her eyes now tightly shut and her tear-soaked cheeks screwed upward in discomfort. “More than being a police officer, I’ve always dreamed of getting married and having children.”

“It’s all she ever talks about,” Nick added while putting on a fox-sized welding helmet.

“Well then, if it isn’t about Gideon pie or the unquestionable destiny of Wilde-Hopps, what could possibly be bothering you, Nick?”

“Well…” Nick hesitantly hummed and hawed.

“It’s okay, Nick,” Nikolu assured him. “You can tell me. After all, we’re nakama.”

Nakama means ‘comrades’.

Nick knew this because he too was familiar with the rich and superior language and culture of Pandanese, which was full of deep and eloquent words that could never be truly translated into Animalish without losing their full and proper meaning.

And Nick knew that Nikolu was right.

They were nakama.

“Well then,” Nick sighed, “to be honest, what’s bothering me… is you.”

“Oh?” Nikolu blinked but still maintained his statuesque posture of an animal Adonis. “What could I possibly be bothering you with?” And with a chortle, he broadly grinned, further brightening the room by twofold. “Could it be my good looks?”

“No,” Nick replied as he placed his second pair of police sunglasses over his helmet’s visor. “And it isn’t your unbelievable intelligence.”

“Or your masterful flair as an artist,” Judy helpfully chimed in while she crawled under her desk and pulled a bag over her head.

“Hmm…” Nikolu pensively hummed as his computer-like brain ran through every possibility. “Could it perhaps be… one of my many flaws? That I care too much? That I’m too selfless? That I don’t really have any legitimate character flaws?”

Nikolu immediately knew he wasn’t hitting the mark as he could see that Nick was shaking his head ‘no’ and couldn’t see Judy’s head at all, as she was under her desk.

“This is a prickly pear of a pickle,” Nikolu deftly observed.

Realizing just how difficult of a nut this was to crack, Special Officer Nikolu raised his paws and proceeded to rub his temples as he had to think harder than he had ever thought before.

“Could it… Ah ha!” Nikolu immediately sprung in his spot and snapped his fingers at a mach speed that only a cheetah could achieve. “It must be about how I allowed myself to be injected with weaponized nighthowler so that I can transform into my Dire Cheetah form when the situation is at its most dire!”

Playfully tsking, Nikolu strutted over to Nick and slapped a paw down on the fox’s shoulder, nearly knocking his three layers of UV protection off his head and risking instant incineration of Nick’s eyes.

“Oh, Nick. It’s like I said before, you can trust me. I’d never go full savage and hurt anyone.”

“Mmm, nope.” Clutching both paws to his jury-rigged protection array, Nick carefully shook his head. “Pretty sure it wasn’t about that.”

“Oh.”

For the first time in his life, Nikolu felt confused and unsure about himself. Of all the crimes he solved, the bad guys he arrested and the vast styles and techniques of artistry he had mastered, this was the most daunting conundrum he had encountered.

Muttering to himself, he counted through the digits on his paws, ticking down each and every possibility.

“Perhaps… How I helped Nick avenge his parents?”

“No.”

“How the Hopps family accepted me as one of their own after I rescued the entire farm from a flash flood?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“How I brokered a peace between Zootopia, Avianopolis and Lizard City?”

“Nah.”

“How it turned out that myself and Benjamin Clawhauser are long lost twins, but he got all the bad genes and that’s why he’s fat and not a king cheetah?”

“Nada.”

“I…” Nikolu gazed despairingly at his open paws. “I…”

“Maybe,” Judy’s muffled bag-voice chirped from beneath her desk, “what’s bothering Nick about you is that there isn’t anything about you that bothers him at all. Because you’re perfect in every way.”

And it was with that sudden piece of insight from Judy, Nick Wilde and Nikolu, who probably has a last name, looked at each other and nodded in unison, knowing that she was right.

“Well,” Nick snickered, “I guess you’re not a dumb bunny after all.”

And then Judy laughed. And Nikolu laughed. And Nick was already laughing because that was previously implied in the last paragraph.

They were all laughing.

Until…

**“THIS IS CHIEF BOGO, CHIEF OF THE ZPD, CALLING FOR SPECIAL OFFICER NIKOLU! ATTENTION NIKOLU! A CIVIL WAR BETWEEN PREDATOR AND PREY HAS BROKEN OUT IN THE CITY AND ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT!”**

Listening to the announcement by Chief Bogo, Nikolu solemnly shook his head.

“War,” he softly murmured, “you would think that after the humans bombed themselves into extinction, leaving us this planet Earth, we would have learned that war was never the answer.”

Nick could see the pain in his friend’s eyes, as a single tear glistened on the king cheetah’s cheek like a single sapphire in a sea of diamonds.

“Wasn’t that what Robin Hood the fox fought for?” He asked Nick. “An end to fighting?”

Nick couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was his turn to be the dumb bunny.

Nikolu shook his head and sighed; never wiping away the tear the sat on his cheek, as a true hero never hides his emotions.

“If either of you need me before I go, I’ll be downstairs, loading the missile-pods on my combat mech.”

And then, in a loud thunderclap of sound and a blurred streak of orange and black, Special Officer Nikolu dashed off to once again save the day.

As soon as the room dimmed back to its natural light, Nick threw everything off his head into a police wastepaper basket, got off his police chair, walked over to the entrance and closed the police door.

“Haah,” Nick exhaled with relief. “I’m glad that Nikolu was finally able to set my weary mind at ease. I just don’t know what we would do without an amazing, perfect, talented, attractive, and amazing person like Special Officer Nikolu. Eh, Carrots?”

Hearing the rapid tapping of Judy’s foot, Nick turned around to find her standing behind him with her arms sternly folded, still wearing a bag over her head.

A frowny face was drawn on the bag in magic marker.

“Alright Nick, did you fucking kill Gideon or what?”


End file.
